The Battle of Celtic Manor: Ryder Cup Preview

“It’s just golf, Bubba.” With all of the hoopla surrounding the biannual Ryder Cup, which begins tomorrow, in Wales, this was the advice that one member of the United States team, Zach Johnson, a former Masters champion, gave to another, the long-hitting Bubba Watson, who is making his Cup début. But, of course, it isn’t just golf. It is a peculiar but intensely gripping amalgam of jingoism, intercontinental rivalry, psychological warfare, and made-for-television entertainment.

Even for many people with but a casual interest in golf, the Ryder Cup is just thrilling to watch. And since the twelve-man U.S. team flew into Cardiff airport earlier this week, the rivalry and mind games have begun in earnest. To inspire the European side, captain Colin Montgomerie (“Mrs. Doubtfire” to his many American tormentors) called on the ailing Seve Ballesteros, the Spanish golfing legend, who played in nine Ryder Cups and made a hobby of baiting (and beating) the Americans. On the speakerphone from Madrid, where he is suffering from a brain tumor, Ballesteros spoke to the European team for about ten minutes. “He gave a very passionate speech like he used to give the team 13 years ago when he was captain,” Montgomerie reported. “The passion engulfed the team room.”

Corey Pavin, the American captain, countered with an uplifting address, delivered in person, from a decorated fighter pilot, Major Dan Rooney, who is also a professional golfer. After telling Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, et al., how he watched the U.S. victory at the 2008 Ryder Cup, which took place in Kentucky, from a military base in Iraq, Rooney presented them with A2 aviator jackets, long standard issue in the U.S. Air Force. Pressed on why he was drawing the U.S. military into a sporting contest, Pavin, who famously donned a camouflage baseball cap when he played in the 1991 Ryder Cup, at Kiawah Island, South Carolina, a match so bitter it became known as “The War by the Shore,” said: “I think military awareness in the United States is probably at an all-time high. And I think people, certainly in the States and over here, appreciate the military and what they do for our freedoms—I think it is worthwhile to recognize that. Major Rooney is a very inspirational guy and a great patriot.”

Even before this latest caper, some Europeans regarded Pavin as something of an American kook. A feisty grinder on the course, Pavin, who won the 1995 U.S. Open, at Shinnecock Hills, was brought up in a Californian Jewish family. In 1991 he converted to Christianity, of the born-again variety, and for many years he has been an active member of the P.G.A. tour’s bible-study group. His wife Lisa, a pretty Vietnamese American who refers to herself as “the Captainess,” recently appeared on the cover of a golf magazine clad only in a small red-white-and-blue sheet. She helped to design the rather strange-looking U.S. uniforms, which the British press has wasted no time in mocking. “The arrival of the US team at the Ryder Cup this week resembled an invasion of science teachers, lost in time and space after an experiment went wrong back in 1977,” commented Hannah Betts, a fashion writer on the Daily Telegraph. “Boxy jackets, Travolta trousers and—please God, no—are those slip-on shoes?”

Montgomerie, no stranger to controversy himself, has also run into flak. On Monday, he issued a team ban on Twitter, thereby enraging some of his younger players who are avid tweeters. (Ian Poulter, he of the spiky hair and garish outfits, has more than a million followers.) Twenty-four hours later, the European captain was forced to back down, issuing a “clarification” in which he said the ban referred only to revealing details of the team’s meetings and other confidential matters.

With all of this stuff going on, the golf has been taking second place, but that is about to change. For many months, and for reasons that I don’t find entirely convincing, the European team has been regarded as a heavy favorite to regain the Cup. The argument for the Euros are many: Europeans are better at match play; European golf is a lot stronger than it used to be; some of the top Americans—most notably, Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson—are out of form. As far as it goes, this is all true. But there are countervailing factors at work.

In recent years, Europe has lost four of its Ryder Cup stalwarts: Montgomerie himself, Darren Clarke, Sergio Garcia, and José María Olazábal. Its 2010 team contains six rookies—Ross Fisher (England), Peter Hanson (Sweden), Martin Kaymer (Germany), Rory McIlroy (Ireland), and Edoardo and Francesco Molinari (Italy)—versus five on the U.S. side (Dustin Johnson, Matt Kuchar, Rickie Fowler, Jeff Overton, and Bubba Watson). Moreover, the two Euros that could truly be regarded as world-class Ryder Cup veterans—Ireland’s Padraig Harrington (three major titles) and England’s Lee Westwood (number three in the world rankings)—both have question marks hanging over them. Harrington hasn’t won outside of Ireland in two years. (He made the team as one of Montgomerie’s three captain’s picks.) Westwood is recovering from an ankle injury, and he hasn’t played since the P.G.A. Championship in mid-August.

To be sure, Woods and Mickelson are also looking distinctly iffy, but both of them are still capable of playing patches of great golf, which is all that is necessary in match play. Moreover, the U.S. team boasts three more veterans who are known for their consistency: Jim Furyk (who last week won the ten-million-dollar FedEx Cup), Steve Stricker, and Stewart Cink. The Euros, by contrast, will have to rely on Luke Donald, Miguel Angel Jimenez, and Graeme McDowell, talented golfers all—McDowell won this year’s U.S. Open, at Pebble Beach—but not players renowned for coming through in head-to-head contests.

Then there are the conditions. Despite its location in a Welsh river valley, Celtic Manor’s Twenty Ten course, which was constructed specifically for this event, is a U.S.-style “stadium course,” with lots of bunkers, changes in elevation, and water hazards. Inexplicably, Captain Monty has failed to “trick it up” in favor of Europe. At Valhalla, in 2008, Paul Azinger, the U.S. skipper, had trees removed and fairways widened to favor the U.S. players who hit it long but occasionally wild: Woods, Mickelson, Anthony Kim, and J. B. Holmes. Despite the fact that this year’s U.S. team is again stacked with “bombers”—in addition to Woods and Mickelson, there are Dustin Johnson, Overton, and Watson—Montgomerie has apparently refrained from bringing in the fairways and growing up the rough to punish errant shots. And despite the fact that Pavin has said, “That’s what I’d do if I were him.”

So what we have is two teams that appear evenly matched on paper; a good deal of uncertainty about how some of the top players will perform; fairly neutral conditions; an edge in experience (and underdog status) to the U.S.; and home-field advantage to the Europeans. I think the match will be close, and I wouldn’t like to pick a winner. But if I were a betting man (and before I moved to the U.S. I was one) I would take the generous odds that the British bookmakers are offering on a U.S. victory: 13/8—wager $80 to win $130. As the U.S. team has discovered to its cost many times in the past twenty-five years, the Ryder Cup, once lost, isn’t easy to win back. This year, for a change, the onus and pressure are on the Europeans.

Let the contest begin!

UPDATE, 4:30 P.M.:

The pairings for tomorrow morning’s four ball matches have been announced and contain two surprises, both on the American side. For the first time in his long but relatively undistinguished Ryder Cup career, Tiger Woods, teamed with Steve Stricker, is going off in the third group rather than the first. This means he misses playing against Lee Westwood, who one of these weeks may well replace him as the top-ranked player in the world. In addition to dropping Tiger down a couple of groups, Corey Pavin has decided to pair up two Cup rookies: Bubba Watson and Jeff Overton.

I think the first decision is a good one: anything that takes a bit of pressure off Tiger can only help the U.S. team. But I’m skeptical about going with Watson and Overton. Both of them are volatile characters who like to play quickly, and I think they might well get unsettled by the partisan crowd and by Harrington, a finicky Irishman who takes an eternity to line up his shots.

Here are the pairings, followed by my prediction of the result in parentheses:

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